


friends close (enemies closer)

by jars (cas_bunny), SasTMK (OutOfLuck)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Oblivious Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Scene: Rome 41 AD (Good Omens), Scene: Rome 41 AD (Good Omens), more like "not friends" to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29069925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cas_bunny/pseuds/jars, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OutOfLuck/pseuds/SasTMK
Summary: As methods of human communication go, spoken words can be quite versatile. For example, when Aziraphale said, “We’re not friends. I don’t even like you,” what he really meant was, “Acknowledging this unspoken thing between us would put us both in mortal danger, and I can’t do that to you. Heaven and Hell must go on thinking us enemies even if nothing could be further from the truth. You’re the dearest thing to me in this entire universe. I can’t lose you.”What Crowley heard was “We’re not friends. I don’t even like you.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 55
Collections: Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Do It With Style Events Reverse Bang!
> 
> Many, many, many, many thanks to both of my lovely beta-readers for this fic, [Z A Dusk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeandmoon) and [Dashicra1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dashicra1/)!
> 
> Chapter 2 will absolutely, without a doubt, be posted next Friday, February 5th, and will feature some awesome art from my amazing collaborator for this project, [SasTMK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OutOfLuck/pseuds/SasTMK)!
> 
> Rating may go up in later chapters! I will try to draw enough attention to this to make it painfully obvious if that is the case.

**Rome, 41AD**

The sound of the tanned leather of his sandals smacking against the concrete echoed in Crowley’s ears as his feet carried him away from the Forum. He hunched his shoulders as a cool January breeze blew through the city. 

Januaries in Rome were, thankfully, not nearly as frigid as other parts of the world (he’d been sent on assignment to Siberia once and barely made it back with all his toes intact). But, while Rome’s warm-blooded citizens were comfortable in the piled cotton layers of a loosely wrapped toga, his reptilian blood revolted against even slightly cooler temperatures.

The truth was, he’d been woefully unprepared for Rome, let alone the rest of this assignment. He’d been lying low in the south of the Indian subcontinent when Dagon’s face had appeared in the Krishna River telling him to be in Rome by the end of the week and to await further instruction. 

Not only had India been _hot_ , but the local people had been much more accepting of his serpentine eyes than most of the west. He’d grown so comfortable, in fact, that he’d stopped deflecting their curiosity, letting the people gaze upon his visage as they pleased.

That had been a mistake, in retrospect. He’d been too distracted by the chilly weather and disgruntled about having to be in Rome in the first place to notice the quiet whispers and averted eyes as he walked through the streets. Then, a child, not watching where she was going while another child down the street, ran directly into his leg, knocking herself off balance and falling to the pavement.

When Crowley had, quite generously he thought, knelt to help her back to her feet, she had met his eyes and shrieked in terror, yelling something about demons and crying for her mother.

He could have miraculously deflected any further attention without so much as a twitch of his fingers. But deflecting attention meant, on some level, telling a lie. It meant making the humans believe they saw eyes where they were expecting eyes, and something about lying— about lying about _himself_ — felt wrong after so long out in the open. Like a step backwards. Back downwards.

So, instead, he snapped his fingers and two dark colored glass plates appeared in front of his eyes, held together by thin metal rims that connected across the bridge of his nose, and held in place by two more pieces of metal that extended to loop over both of his ears. The people still wouldn’t see him for who he really was, but at least it wasn’t an outright lie, either.

When he finally arrived at an inn late that night, there was correspondence waiting for him. 

“Who is ‘Caligula’?” He groused to the woman behind the desk.

“He’s… the emperor. Sir.” She stared in wide-eyed bewilderment.

“What, with a name like that?”

“Sir!”The confusion in her wide eyes morphed to fear. “Sir, please,” she continued, voice low and hushed, “you never know when they may be listening.”

“When _who_ might be listening?” He pressed.

She looked around, as if making sure someone else hadn’t materialized out of the dead of night. Finally, her eyes landed back on Crowley, lips pursed for a moment. Then she began to speak.

Crowley listened, the taste of disgust growing in the back of his mouth, as the woman recounted the tale of a city held captive by terror. Of random executions and parents made to laugh and smile as they watched their children put to death, lest they be next. Of citizens starving while an emperor demanded statues of himself built for their worship. 

When she finished, silence filled the space between them that had grown too large for words to fill. Eventually, Crowley reached into his coin purse and fisted several times the price of a room, dropped the coins on the counter, and walked off.

That had all been last night. Today, he’d woken early (a feat all on its own) to insinuate himself into a conference of the senate. Apparently, Hell had gotten wind of Caligula’s barbarism before he had, and they wanted to see his heinous acts expanded outside the Roman empire. So, Crowley had shown up, whispered some nonsense in his ear about Alexandria being nice this time of year, and been on his way. And, if on his way out, he happened to mention to more than a few senators that their emperor was planning to relocate outside the kingdom, well, then so be it.

Crowley turned down an alleyway as he continued to put as much distance between himself and Rome’s deranged emperor as possible. He wanted nothing more than to be out of Rome and to put the entire incident behind him. But first, he wanted a drink. He needed a drink.

He shuffled through the door of the first tavern he could find and trudged his way up to the bar. 

The place wasn’t much, but he was happy to be at least somewhat sheltered from the cold outdoors. 

“What have you got?” He asked the woman behind the counter. “I’ll have a jug of whatever you think’s drinkable.”

She nodded. “Jug of house brown. Two sesterces.”

Crowley traded her the coins for the jug of wine, and she walked away to serve another customer, leaving Crowley alone at the bar.

It was probably for the best, really. He’d been getting comfortable— soft, even— since his last assignment. Sloth was, of course, one of the cardinal sins, and thus a praiseworthy characteristic down Below. Comfort, when spun by the right silver tongued demon, could look an awful lot like sloth. But soft? Soft in Hell would get him punished, ‘Rehabilitated’ perhaps. Soft would get him dead.

Even immediately after the Fall, Crowley had never really ‘fit in’ in Hell, insofar as ‘fitting in’ in Hell was a thing, anyway. Crowley wanted mischief with a dash of mayhem. He wanted to push buttons and stand back to see the results of his experiments. He wanted to ask questions. He didn’t want to watch people starve while others had their children murdered.

None of that was to say that he regretted Falling. No, Hell might be devastatingly depraved in nearly every way, but at least they were honest about it. Heaven pushed the same morally depraved policies, then hid them behind the banner of “The Great Plan” and claimed the moral high ground for it.

Bunch of righteous bastards with sticks so far up their arses they couldn’t sit straight, if you asked him.

He was alone in the world, and he knew it.

Suddenly a voice called from over his shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts, “Crawley— Crowley?”

Crowley tried not to groan internally. He’d know that high, fluttery voice anywhere. He felt dirty enough without a literal angel to remind him what he was and what side he was supposed to be on.

Crowley turned to see Aziraphale, dressed in a pristine white toga and looking every bit as radiant as he had that fateful day on the wall of Eden.

The angel seemed to take his silence as an invitation to continue, so he plowed on, “Fancy running into you here!” 

And _then_ he actually had the audacity to claim the empty seat beside Crowley. Invitation be damned, Crowley supposed.

“Still a demon, then?”

Of all the questions he had been expecting, that one definitely didn’t make the list. On another day, under different circumstances, he might have even laughed at the absurdity of it. As if there was anything else for a thing like him to be. But it wasn’t a different day. It was today. And today Crowley was tired, and bitter, and _angry_.

“What kind of stupid question is that? ‘Still a demon?’ What else am I going to be? An aardvark?” He snarled. And if it was a bit of an overreaction and he hurt the angel’s feelings... well, he was a demon, after all.

But Aziraphale— much to Crowley’s surprise— didn’t even bat an eye at his outburst. Instead of the righteous rebuke he was expecting Aziraphale simply shrugged and offered, “Just trying to make conversation.”

Their exchange fizzled for a moment, but the angel made no move to get up and leave. Crowley sighed. If they were going to sit here together Aziraphale might as well have a drink.

“Cup of wine? It’s the house wine— dark.”

Crowley turned back to the bartender and signalled her from across the room, “A cup for my acquaintance here,” Crowley nodded gruffly in Aziraphale’s direction.

“Salutaria!” Aziraphale grinned, raising his mug to offer a toast. As Crowley raised his own mug in response he couldn’t help but feel some of the bone deep chill that had been following him around since he arrived in Rome start to slip away.

“In Rome long?” Aziraphale asked, bringing Crowley’s attention back to the present.

“Just nipped in for a quick temptation. You?”

“I thought I’d try Petronius’s new restaurant. I hear he does _remarkable_ things to oysters.”

“I’ve never eaten an oyster.”

Crowley really, honestly, hadn’t meant anything by it. He hadn’t been fishing for an invitation— if anything he’d expected Aziraphale to bugger off to go try some _remarkable_ oysters and leave him in peace.

“Oh!” Aziraphale gasped— and Crowley swore the angel sounded nearly _scandalized_ — “Oh, well let me _tempt_ you to... oh. Oh, no that’s your job, isn’t it?”

It took all of Crowley’s composure to avoid choking on the wine making its way down his throat at that instant. 

Demons were responsible for atrocities. Demons _tempted_.

Angels were responsible for miracles. Angels _blessed_. Angels most certainly did not _tempt_.

Except this one just had, hadn’t he? Regardless of whether he had meant it or not (and a very noisy area in the back of Crowley’s brain insisted that the angel _had_ meant to tempt him), Crowley was _tempted_.

He turned to Aziraphale for the first time since the angel had sat down and offered him the tiniest of smirks. A smirk, definitely not a smile. Demons didn’t smile.

* * *

The oysters were disgusting. 

Their server had walked past, slid a tray of the proverbial molluscs between the two of them in one fluid motion, and disappeared into the hustle and bustle of the restaurant. Aziraphale had wasted no time snatching up a shell and carefully ferrying its contents to his waiting mouth.

Crowley stared, thankful not for the first time for the dark glass in front of his eyes, as Aziraphale tipped his head back, exposing the pale column of his neck in a way that made Crowley’s insides squirm before he had even eaten anything.

“Well?” Aziraphale gestured toward the artfully arranged tray between them.

Crowley hesitantly picked up one delicate shell and raised it to his own lips. He slowly tipped it upwards and was immediately filled with regret as the first molecules of liquid met his sensitive tongue. Crowley had never put much, or any, thought into what an oyster would taste like prior to the past hour, but if pressed, he would have expected a salty taste, or bitter, even, with a thick, viscous texture. But the meat of an oyster was, apparently, much more akin to a thick slime with an almost metallic taste that sank so far into his scent glands Crowley was sure he’d be catching whiffs of it for days afterward. He sputtered and gagged as his serpentine instincts took over, swallowing the entire thing down whole.

“Oh my, are you quite alright?” Aziraphale asked, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“That was disgusting! I thought you said these things were supposed to be remarkable?”

“Well, perhaps it just takes someone with a more...” He paused, searching for the right word, “refined palette, to appreciate their complex flavor profile.” 

“It’s rusty sea snot, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale didn’t bother rising to his taunt. Instead he simply shrugged and plucked another oyster from the tray. Pity, Crowley had almost been enjoying their back and forth banter.

Though, if he was being fair to Aziraphale (which he certainly was not), Crowley rarely ate. For all he knew all food might be disgusting. Eating was something humans did because they had to— some base carnal need that they had to satisfy in order to keep their fragile corporations functioning.

 _But that’s not always true._ The little voice in the back of his head nagged. _They also eat for pleasure. You’ve seen them sit around tables in taverns, at dining halls, in homes, eating and drinking and laughing._ Crowley had to admit, the voice had a point.

As he watched Aziraphale consume oyster after oyster, it occurred to Crowley that he felt… lighter, somehow. Warmer. Like the sins of his day were somehow being bathed in the salty air between them and expunged from his essence.

He looked around the restaurant at the other patrons chattering away at their tables over the disgusting seafood. They seemed… happy.

Was that how he felt, sitting here watching Aziraphale smile and recount the mundane tales of his day? Happy? 

Was this… friendship? Were they friends?

Aziraphale had been the one to invite him here, after all.

_“Let me tempt you.”_

Crowley repressed a shudder as the words crawled their way up his spine.

The problem was… he could get used to this. Sitting across from the angel. Watching him smile and laugh at his own jokes while Crowley tried to hide a grin in his mug of wine. Listening as he told Crowley about the _very rude_ scroll merchant he’d had the misfortune of dealing with earlier that day. He could get used to having company once in a while.

To having a friend.

“Those are new.” Aziraphale’s words pulled Crowley from his thoughts as he gestured toward the bridge of Crowley’s nose while he raised yet another oyster to his salt-slicked lips.

Crowley groaned internally. He’d been almost proud of his little invention yesterday, but the idea of explaining himself to Aziraphale made him feel uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t quite articulate. “Yup,” he answered curtly, hoping the angel would take the hint and drop the subject.

“May I see them?”

Hint not taken, then. “…What for?” Crowley asked cautiously. ‘May I see them,’ was dangerously close to, ‘why do you have them?’ and Crowley didn’t really feel like explaining that he’d made a child cry without even trying.

Aziraphale shrugged nonchalantly. “They’re just so clever. I’ve never seen anything like them, you know. Though it is a shame they hide your wonderful eyes.”

Crowley cocked his head to the side in consideration. That was… not what he was expecting.

“Yeah, well ‘wonderful’ s’a bit subjective, _angel_ ,” Crowley answered, the last word laced with enough bite to hint at danger, but not enough to hurt.

He hadn’t meant it as an insult, exactly. But he certainly hadn’t meant it to be a compliment, either. More of a sobering reminder that Aziraphale was, in fact, an angel, sitting across a table from a demon and happily slurping oysters as if there was nothing wrong with that picture. 

Instead, Aziraphale lit up with so much light that Crowley wondered vaguely if he should be worried about being accidentally smitten. A grin stretched from ear to ear as he ducked his head in an almost bashful way. The faintest dusting of pink appeared on his cheeks. Was Aziraphale… blushing?

“Oh!” Aziraphale exclaimed, once he recovered from… whatever that was. “Oh Crowley, what a nice thing for you to say.”

Crowley stared.

_Nice._

_What a nice thing for you to say._

Crowley shook his head. He was a demon. Demons weren’t nice. Demons tempted people into sin. Demons were responsible for atrocities and cruelty and suffering. Demons weren’t nice.

“Crowley? Are you quite alright?”

Crowley couldn’t do anything besides stare. The word was stuck in his head in a never ending loop. _Nice. Nice. Nice. Nice. He thinks you’re nice. The_ angel _thinks you’re nice._ Oh, Hell was going to have him so much worse than dead if they found out.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked again, worry creeping into his voice.

Crowley willed himself to get it together and shook his head, “Just thinking that perhaps you aren’t the world’s worst dining partner.”

Aziraphale practically glowed. “A toast then, to good company.”

They clinked mugs, and Crowley had just opened his mouth to respond when they were interrupted by a voice to his left.

“Excuse me, sir, but would you and your friend—”

Crowley hadn’t even had time to turn and see who it was before Aziraphale froze, oyster midway between the plate and his soft, pink lips. His jubilant smile from moments ago was replaced by a heart wrenching scowl. A frigid chill swept through Crowley’s bones, as if all of the heat in their vicinity had suddenly been sucked up into some sort of vacuum. He was _freezing_. The only thing keeping him from outright shivering was his demonic dignity.

“We’re not friends!” Aziraphale protested, his voice pitched high with scandal. “Hardly even acquaintances, really. Work colleagues. Well, not so much colleagues as mortal enemies pitted against each other since the dawn of time. I don’t know him. Never even met him before. Crowley who?”

Crowley would have laughed at how ridiculous it was that Aziraphale could progress from ‘acquaintances’ to ‘Crowley who?’ in a matter of seconds if he wasn’t busy trying to control the blindingly painful ache that was suddenly wreaking havoc in his chest before it caused any serious damage.

From the corner of his eye Crowley saw the man, whoever he was, nod stupidly at Aziraphale. He must have said something else because his mouth was moving and then Aziraphale was flashing him one of his kind smiles and handing the man a frankly obscene amount of coin. He bowed and tottered off.

Around them the chattering buzz of other diners continued. Crowley sat transfixed, lips still slightly parted in anticipation of the words that had died on his tongue. He stared ahead, unseeing, as the noise seemed to grow louder and louder until it had drowned out his own thoughts. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. All he could do was sit and hope that a pit might open beneath him and swallow him whole. 

Crowley wasn’t sure how long he sat there like that. It could have been mere seconds or it could have been several minutes. He was finally pulled back into the world by the feeling of a hand grabbing his shoulder and Aziraphale’s voice calling his name.

“—ley? Crowley? _Crowley!_ ”

He opened his mouth to speak but found his tongue had dried out like a leaf on a hot autumn day, discarded and forgotten on the ground so that something better might grow again in its place.

Finally, he managed to swallow. “Right.”

He hoped he sounded more composed than he felt. “Well then…” It was only then that Crowley realized he was still holding his mug in one hand. The cup dangling stupidly in the air, wine sloshing dangerously where Crowley’s hand had gone limp at the wrist. Composing himself, he slammed the mug down onto the table and stood from his seat.

“I should be going. Ciao, Aziraphale.”

He could hear Aziraphale protesting as he walked away as quickly as his serpentine hips would let him, the one oyster he had eaten suddenly sitting much more uncomfortably in his stomach than it had been earlier.

* * *

The world, it seemed, just wanted to mock Crowley after that. Every time he ran into the angel, some bystander felt the need to comment on their relationship. And every time, Aziraphale felt the need to correct that, _“Oh no, we’re not friends. I don’t know him. We’ve never met before.”_

And every time, Crowley was forced to stand there and try to hold up a fake smile while studiously ignoring the echoes of phantom pain reverberating in the empty chasm of his chest. The first few times it’d happened he’d nearly cut and run like back in Rome.

But, by the time they met Shakespeare, sometime around the turn of the 17th century, Crowley had his reaction down to a science. They’d been standing in the globe, Aziraphale looking gorgeous in his shimmering ruff collar and ornate doublet with ridiculously frilly shirt cuffs, suffering through the Bard’s latest acting troupe’s dress rehearsal of Hamlet, when the man on stage had turned to them and asked Aziraphale, “And what does your friend think?”

Crowley had stood there, the embodiment of the calm of a snake right before the strike, as Aziraphale launched into his well-practiced response.

_Not friends._

_We’ve never met before._

_We don’t know each other._

Crowley had stared the man dead in the eye, given him his best dastardly grin with just a bit too much tooth, and said, “I think you should get on with the play.”

After that, Crowley had almost convinced himself that he was alright with it. Almost.

Because the thing was, by the time the 21st century had rolled around, Crowley was fairly certain that he didn’t actually want to be friends with Aziraphale, either. Of course, that was only a half truth that he told himself before trying to lay down to sleep on restless nights at best, and just a plain lie in the light of most days. The truth was, he did want to be friends with Aziraphale. But he didn’t want to be _just_ friends with Aziraphale. 

He wanted to do things that were wholly inappropriate between friends. Things like holding the angel’s hand while they walked through St. James’s Park. Like falling asleep on the settee in the backroom of the angel’s bookshop with his head pillowed in Aziraphale’s plush lap instead of on one of the angel’s seemingly endless supply of throw pillows while he carded his fingers through the sensitive hair at Crowley’s nape. And sometimes, on the very darkest of nights when he felt sure and safe in the fact that there was no one else around to hear his thoughts, he let himself wonder what it might feel like to touch Aziraphale’s sweet lips to his own. Not strictly ‘friendly’ behavior, that.

But he’d settle for friends.

Who was he kidding, he’d be ecstatic with friends.

So Crowley made that his goal— become friends. Nothing more. Somehow become good enough in Aziraphale’s eyes to warrant such a precious title. And he just might have succeeded.

Then Armageddon happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it this far please know that I appreciate each and every one of you tremendously <3 This was by far the most challenging (and rewarding!) thing I've ever written for a lot of reasons (not least among them being that historical settings are _hard!_ ). I'd be honored if you tuned back in next week for chapter two!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three weeks after averting the apocalypse, an angel and a demon go for lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art for this chapter is by the amazing [SasTMK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OutOfLuck/pseuds/SasTMK)!
> 
> Beta'd by [Z A Dusk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeandmoon) and [Dashicra1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dashicra1/)!

Crowley watched disinterestedly as rain pelted the window of his office. Three weeks since the not-apocalypse, and other than their celebratory dinner together at the Ritz, Aziraphale hadn’t even so much as called.

Crowley only had himself to blame, really. His behavior at the bandstand had been practically unhinged.

 _Even if this whole thing ends up in a puddle of burning goo we can… go off together_.

_‘Go off together?’ Listen to yourself._

Crowley cringed. He had been desperate, not thinking.

_How long have we been friends? Six thousand years!_

_Friends? We’re not friends. We are an angel and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common. I don’t even like you._

He and Aziraphale _weren’t_ friends. He knew this. They’d been over this. The angel had made it abundantly clear, century after century after century.

He sat at his desk and held his head in his hands, fingers scratching restlessly at his scalp. Armageddon was over. _The Arrangement_ was over. No real need to be consorting with the enemy when he was, well, no longer the enemy. He and Aziraphale were free of the chokehold that their respective head offices had held them in for the past six thousand years, but now what? And yes, Crowley had proposed that from now on they were “on their own side,” but what did that really even mean? It wasn’t like they had stopped to draw up a bloody contract.

He picked up the telephone receiver, grimaced, cursed, and placed it back in its cradle.

He sighed. Whatever “our side,” was supposed to mean, he was fairly sure it wasn’t the sort of situation where you could simply pick up the telephone and say, “Hi Aziraphale, fancy a spot of lunch?” That was something _friends_ did, after all.

Maybe he could sleep. Nothing drastic, just a month or two. Long enough to take the edge off the cold emptiness sinking into his bones.

As soon as the thought occurred to him, the phone began to ring. Crowley jumped in his seat. Completely justified, he thought, given the extent to which he was not expecting a call.

Who the hell was calling, didn’t they know he was trying to brood?

He yanked the receiver back out of its cradle. _“What?”_ He snarled into the receiving end.

“...Crowley?” The voice was clearly Aziraphale’s, despite the fact that it sounded much smaller than usual. 

_Oh fuck._

“Angel!” He tried to amend his earlier outburst with much nicer tone, but overcorrected and ended up somewhere bordering on glee.

_Silence._

Shit. Shit shit shit.

He’d fucked it up. Someone had given him one more chance to talk to the angel and instead of greeting him like a reasonable fucking person he’d snapped at him and now he’d missed his chance and—

“Crowley?” Aziraphale interrupted his unvoiced panic.

“Yeah, angel?” Crowley tried to sound nonchalant but it came out as more of a relieved sigh. Maybe he hadn’t entirely missed his chance, then.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, and then the sound of Aziraphale’s voice was fluttering through the phone and wrapping him in a warmth that stretched from the tips of his ears down to his toes. He felt himself relax, if only marginally, for the first time since picking up the phone.

“How have you been, my dear?” Aziraphale asked. The endearment was said so _softly_ that it made something in his chest constrict in a way he preferred not to examine too closely.

“G—,” he tried to speak but stumbled over the lump that had formed in his throat. He swallowed and tried again, “Good, yeah. Great actually. Doing great, me. How’re you?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and did he almost sound… disappointed? “Oh, I’ve been well, thank you.”

“Well that’s… good.”

“Yes.”

Silence hummed across the line.

“Right. Was there uhm… was there something else, Aziraphale?”

“Yes!” Aziraphale answered immediately. There was a short silence during which Crowley heard some shuffling on the other end of the line. Then finally Aziraphale spoke, “I suppose I was hoping— that is I was wondering if— if you might like to go to lunch?” 

_Lunch!_ The voice in his head nearly screamed. _Of course I’d love to go to lunch!_

 _But you’ll just ruin that too_. Whispered the other voice.

“There’s— ah— well there’s this new place I was hoping to try,” Aziraphale continued while the voices wrestled for control of Crowley’s vocal cords. “You see, it’s a—”

“Yes.” Crowley cut him off, then cringed at how desperate he must seem.

“Oh! Oh— well jolly good then.” Crowley could practically feel Aziraphale glowing through the phone.

“When were you thinking?” Crowley asked. He glanced at his watch. It was already nearly two in the afternoon. Probably too late for lunch unless Aziraphale wanted to rush out right this minute. Which of course, was ridiculous. The angel had books and… well, books. To keep him company. It would be fine, they’d go for lunch in a few days. When Aziraphale had had time to finish whatever series he was reading. Or maybe a week if he also decided he needed to tidy some shelves. Or a month, or even two if he decided he needed to reorganize the filing system again, or— 

“...Now?”

Crowley blinked. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes! Yes everything is fine, my dear. Tip top. I’m just… a bit peckish, is all.”

“Yeah, alright angel, sure,” he agreed, still not totally convinced. “Pick you up at the bookshop in 20 minutes,” Crowley announced, and promptly hung up.

* * *

Crowley made it to the bookshop in under ten minutes. His palms were sweaty and he’d been holding the Bentley’s wheel in a vise grip so strong his arms were starting to ache. Why was he this nervous? It was just lunch. He and Aziraphale had eaten countless lunches together. This was no different. It was just lunch.

He took a deep breath in an attempt to compose himself. His hand had just moved to open the Bentley’s door and go fetch Aziraphale (the angel frequently got lost in books or other tasks and didn’t notice his arrival), when he spied Aziraphale exiting the bookshop, completely unprompted by anything other than the Bentley sitting outside for what couldn’t have been longer than thirty seconds.

Crowley watched as Aziraphale stopped to turn the key in the lock of his front door before walking down the steps to where the Bentley was waiting for him. His eyes never left the angel as he popped open the passenger side door and lowered himself into the seat. 

Realistically, Aziraphale looked exactly the same as the day after Armageddon, when Crowley had walked the angel back to the bookshop after their dinner at the Ritz. They had said their awkward goodbyes and then parted ways. It was the same outdated Victorian-period ensemble. Same spotless oxfords, same beige trousers that hugged his thighs in that way that made Crowley’s stomach do awkward somersaults. Same soft, blue shirt with his ridiculous bow tie, all wrapped up in the same coat that Crowley had had the privilege of miracling paint out of what felt like ages long ago.

Aziraphale sat down and closed the door, then turned to look at him. Crowley felt their eyes meet even through the dark lens of his glasses as he gazed back. 

Aziraphale’s eyes had a tendency to change color with the weather. On the sunniest of days they were an almost electrifying shade of blue. Crowley loved all of Aziraphale’s eye colors the same way he loved all of Aziraphale. But, if pressed, he would say he liked this one the least because the color was so intense that it distracted from his other lovely features.

On days when the sky was mostly overcast his eyes would turn a soft grey color with the smallest hint of blue. Crowley found these to be much more welcoming than Aziraphale’s sunny-day eyes. And, living in a rainy place like London, they were the eyes Aziraphale wore most often. 

But, on rainy or stormy days like today, they were an amalgam of intense blue and deep gray, with shards of green and hazel, tumultuous as the weather around them. 

They were breathtaking. 

“...Crowley?”

 _Shit._ How long had he been staring?

Crowley opened his mouth to say something smooth, something to ease the awkward tension he had already created. 

“...Hi,” he said, intelligently.

Crowley groaned internally. This was not going how he had hoped.

But instead of being put out by his nonsensical behavior, Aziraphale actually seemed to soften in the seat next to him, his body relaxing into the back of the seat for the first time since he had sat down.

“Hello, my dear.” Aziraphale smiled and Crowley _swore_ that the sun must have chosen that precise moment to peek out from behind a cloud because suddenly the entire world was a little brighter.

Their drive to the restaurant passed in an uneventful silence once Aziraphale had finished giving Crowley directions. The angel spent most of their ride looking contentedly out the passenger side window. Although Crowley’s mind must have been playing tricks on him, because he swore he caught Aziraphale looking at him out of the corner of his eye at one point.

As he stepped out of the Bentley, Crowley realized for the first time since leaving his flat that it was still raining. Cool droplets of water found their way through his hair down to his scalp, making it tickle. Then, just as suddenly as he had realized it was raining, Crowley realized it had stopped. He looked up to see the underside of what was very clearly a tartan umbrella. He turned to his right to see Aziraphale smiling at him. They were standing quite close together. Very close.

Wordlessly, Aziraphale led him across the street by way of umbrella. They walked through the doorway of the restaurant, and Crowley squinted as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of their surroundings. It was the sort of restaurant that Crowley thought would be annoyingly dark to try to eat in if he actually, well, ate. 

As his eyes adjusted he could see that the main sources of lighting for the entire place were the wrought iron chandeliers hung across the ceiling. They were ornate, each one holding aloft dozens of lights ensconced in a multitude of yellow and orange hues of colored glass. But there was something simple about their elegance, too, with the exposed iron. The soft color of the light almost reminded him of eating by candlelight, centuries ago.

A pleasant warmth on the small of his back interrupted his thoughts.

“Come along dear, I do believe we’re blocking the entryway.”

Crowley’s legs, thankfully, were intelligent enough on their own to follow Aziraphale’s lead as the angel guided him out of the doorway and up to the front of the restaurant. He tried not to mourn the loss of warmth when Aziraphale retracted his hand as he politely asked the maitre’d for a table for two.

The young man at the podium inspected the seating card for a long moment.

“I’m terribly sorry, sir, but all we have at the moment is a booth. I can seat you there, if you’d like?”

Crowley automatically moved his hand to perform a quiet miracle before insisting that, _‘no, I think you’d better check again.’_ But before he could summon so much as a tingle to his fingers, Aziraphale answered, “That will do nicely, dear boy.”

Crowley turned to look at him but Aziraphale was just smiling pleasantly back at the host as he grabbed a pair of menus from the shelf of his podium. 

Part of him wanted to open his mouth and ask Aziraphale what in Someone’s name was going on. Because they didn’t do this. They sat at tables when they went to eat. Always had done. Tables were for conducting business, for transactional discussion related to The Arrangement. People conducting business did not sit in booths. Friends sat in booths. _Lovers_ sat in booths. Crowley tried to ignore the faint wave of nausea that he felt at the last thought.

As they walked to their _booth,_ Crowley took in the rest of the restaurant. In addition to the chandeliers, each table had its own small, tiffany-style lamp to provide extra light. The walls were exposed brick, worn rough with age. The sounds of silverware clinking against china and the chatter of other diners reverberated off the walls. 

They reached the back of the restaurant in about twenty paces, where they came to a stop at a small but cozy booth, barely big enough to fit one person on each side. Where the side of the table met the brick wall stood their little table lamp, happily glowing and bathing their table in warm yellow light. 

As they took their seats the noise of the restaurant faded into the background. The already small space between them seemed to draw them even further inward, as if they were floating in their own intimate bubble.

Aziraphale’s face lit up as he looked over the menu, making little ‘ooh’s and ‘aahh’s that made Crowley’s stomach feel funny and his face heat up in response.

In fact, the entire place seemed to be a bit on the warm side. Not an uncomfortable warm, as was usually the case inside smaller old buildings cramped with people. It was… pleasant. Like curling up on a warm rock on a sunny day in his serpent form.

Not wanting to be caught staring again, Crowley glanced down at his own menu. They were, apparently, in some sort of French establishment specializing in seafood. A combination he probably would have tried to take credit for if this were the old days. 

French food reminded him of the incident with Aziraphale in the Bastille, which he still had conflicting feelings about. On the one hand, Aziraphale had put himself in danger, albeit only mortal, just for the opportunity to nibble some crepes. But, on the other hand, Crowley had gotten to play the hero and come to his daring rescue. Not to mention how the angel had looked in those knee high silk stockings and delicate shoes. Or the way he’d looked at Crowley when he’d freed Aziraphale from his handcuffs. As if _Crowley_ was the scrummy thing he wanted to eat.

But that was ridiculous. There was no chance the angel thought of him as anything close to desirable. Let alone something as ridiculous as _scrummy_.

Crowley’s eyes continued down the menu. They even had _oysters_. He repressed a shudder. Nearly two thousand years and the mere thought of oysters still turned his stomach.

Maybe he’d just get coffee. It wasn’t like he often ate when they went out together anyway. Plus, coffee was easy. Hard to mess up a coffee.

“Hi there!” A bubbly voice to their left interrupted Crowley’s train of thought. “How are we doing? My name’s Willow, and I’ll be taking care of you today.”

Crowley turned to see their waitress, a dark-haired girl with a well-groomed bob cut and choker necklace standing next to their table.

He nodded to Aziraphale in silent invitation for the angel to order. Crowley watched as the warm light of the lamp illuminated the angel’s profile when Aziraphale turned his head. The soft light tangled in his curls and suddenly Crowley was struck with just how much he had missed this. 

Of course he had known that he’d missed Aziraphale something awful these past three weeks, that much was a given after knowing the angel for the past six millenia. But seeing him here, happy and glowing in the lamp light, made Crowley’s heart constrict uncomfortably at the idea of not knowing when he would see him again at the end of their meal.

He needed a plan. He had to think of some way to get Aziraphale to see him again once they parted ways after lunch. Some kind of new arrangement. After all there must have been something Crowley could offer that the angel would need, right?

“— and for you, sir?” Willow turned to look at him.

Crowley ducked his head back to his menu. He’d been staring. _Again._ “Coffee, black.” He answered without looking up.

A smile tugged at one side of Aziraphale’s mouth. “Ever the voracious eater, I see, my dear.”

Crowley shrugged, “Don’t see why that needs to change, angel.”

The way Aziraphale smiled at him in response was so soppy that Crowley thought he might actually melt into a puddle in the middle of the restaurant. 

“No, I don’t either,” Aziraphale said softly. The lighting of the restaurant must have been playing tricks on Crowley’s eyes because it very much looked like the angel was _blushing._

Aziraphale cleared his throat as he recovered from _whatever_ that was. He reached across the table and plucked Crowley’s menu from his fingers to stack it with his own before turning back to Willow to say, “He’ll just have the coffee. Thank you very much.” 

Willow paused to look between them for a moment before giving them a knowing smile and pocketing her notepad. She promised their food would be ready soon as she left their table.

Without menus to flip through, the delicate bubble surrounding the two of them fell quiet. 

Crowley knew how to sit in brightly-lit eating establishments and discuss business across a table. He knew how to get blind drunk in the back of the bookshop and natter on about the size of whales’ brains. 

He did not know how to do whatever this was.

Aziraphale also seemed to have picked up on the newly-settled unease. The corners of his mouth now angled down in the barest hint of a frown— the type of subtle change that took a six thousand year relationship to notice. He reached up to adjust his bow tie— never a good sign— as he met Crowley’s gaze.

“So— ahm— have you been up to anything… interesting? These past few weeks?”

Which— small talk, really? The angel wanted to do small talk? What was he supposed to do with that? It wasn’t as if he could just tell Aziraphale the truth. _I’ve been agonizing over my telephone, hoping you would call even though I thought it was pointless. I haven’t been this lonely since the holy water debacle in 1862, and I slept my way through most of that. I’ve yelled at my plants. Spent a lot of time staring despondently out my window like an idiot._

He shrugged. “Little of this, little of that. Yourself?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale huffed a rueful sigh, “I’ve been reorganizing the entire bookshop, I’m afraid.”

“What for?”

“It would seem that despite his best efforts, Adam did not put everything back _quite_ the way it was. All of my books seem to have been organized by—” his nose crinkled in disgust— “the dewey decimal system.”

Crowley barked a laugh. At least some things hadn’t changed. Fussy angel was still a fussy angel. “So, what’s the problem?” he asked. “Just miracle them back the way they were.”

“I can’t!” Aziraphale whined with just a tad too much honest distress for Crowley’s liking.

“Why not? Surely you know where they all were. What’s the problem?”

“Well… yes.” Aziraphale looked away, then sighed. “I mean… no. Sort of. You see they’re less organized by some type of logical filing system as they are by… emotional significance. In some cases, anyway.”

Crowley raised one eyebrow over the lens of his glasses. The fact that Aziraphale’s books were not, in fact, shelved following a logical filing system wasn’t at all surprising, but…

“Emotional significance?”

“Yes. There are broad categories, of course. Shakespeare for example, has an entire section. Books of prophecy. But some works are part of groups that only I would find sense in. For example, I have a playbill from one of the first performances of Hamlet, which isn’t with the other Shakespeare works, it’s in another section entirely.”

 _Hamlet._ The name caught Crowley’s attention. Hamlet was, of course, one of Shakespeare’s gloomy ones, that Crowley may have gone a bit overboard in miracling into one of the most successful plays of all time. 

It was also the site of one of many “not friends” incidents.

He swallowed. “So… what else would be in this section?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale was suddenly very interested in his own hands. “Nothing very interesting, really. A notebook owned by Leonardo Da Vinci. A few encyclopedias of plant species and other horticultural texts. A copy of _Sylvia’s Lovers_ I read quite a few times during the 1860’s. Some Ian Fleming novels.”

When Aziraphale finally met his gaze again there was a hesitancy in his eyes. Almost like an open question mixed with the barest hint of hope that gave Crowley pause. He didn’t know exactly how, but it felt like they were suddenly treading into uncharted territory.

“Ian Fleming novels? What, don’t tell me you’ve got Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang in your special section.”

Aziraphale averted his eyes again. “No, actually that’d be in the children’s books section.”

Crowley watched as Aziraphale wrung his hands together. None of this made any sense. Practically the only other works Fleming had written were his Bond series, and Crowley was very certain that James Bond was not Aziraphale’s cup of tea.

“If you remember which books were in this section, why can't you just miracle them back?”

When Aziraphale finally met his gaze again, it wasn’t the brief eye contact of acknowledgement. He held Crowley’s gaze as if trying to impress the significance of what he was about to say. 

“The context of the moment is important. I hold the book and I feel something, so it goes in that section. It wouldn’t be the same to just move them by miracle. Plus, some books might have developed meaning over time that they didn’t have when I originally shelved them. For others the meaning may have changed.”

Crowley didn’t know how he was supposed to respond to that. Aziraphale was looking at him expectantly like there was some hidden meaning to his words that Crowley was failing to grasp.

“Oysters?”

Crowley’s head snapped around to see Willow holding a tray expectantly.

“Oh, yes!” Aziraphale wiggled gleefully.

Crowley watched helplessly as Willow deposited the tray of oysters on their tiny table. Had he really been so caught up in staring at Aziraphale that he hadn’t noticed the angel order _oysters_?

He sucked in a breath. Not again. It wouldn’t happen again.

It was fine. Everything would be fine. Surely Aziraphale had eaten oysters plenty of other times since Rome. It didn’t mean anything. Everything would be fine.

_Not friends not friends not friends not friends not—_

“And one black coffee.” The steaming cup clattered against its saucer as Willow deposited it in front of him on the table. “Can I get you anything else?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “It looks delicious! Thank you very much, my dear.”

“I hope you and your husband enjoy your meal!”

Crowley froze. 

_Husband_. The word bounced around the walls of his mind until it devolved into a cacophony of meaningless sound.

 _Oh._ Oh this was bad. This was very bad. Aziraphale couldn’t even cope with the suggestion of them being _friends_ without brutally setting the record straight. What was an innocent suggestion of friendship when compared to the accusation of being married? Friends was a tiny thing, a dwarf by comparison.

He ducked his head and looked at his lap. He didn’t think he would survive the look on Aziraphale’s face right now. Crowley’s fingers curled around the edges of his seat in an attempt to brace himself for the inevitable.

_Husband? Oh no I think there’s been a dreadful mistake._

_An angel and a demon bound together in Her most Holy sacrament? Absurd._

_I don’t even like him. In fact, I’ve never liked him. The entire Arrangement was just a matter of convenience in the name of advancing The Greater Good._

_We’re most certainly not married. We’re not even friends. In fact, after this lunch we won’t even be acquaintances—_

But Crowley heard nothing.

Surely that couldn’t be right. Surely Aziraphale was about to say something. It’d taken him a moment because the statement had caught him so off guard, but once he recovered surely he’d set the record straight.

But seconds ticked by and Crowley still heard nothing.

Curiosity had always been his downfall, and finally it got the better of him (as it always did, in the end). He looked up, expecting to see Aziraphale, lips parted with words ready to leap off his tongue, and Willow still standing there, listening intently to see what Aziraphale was about to say. But there was just Aziraphale, fingers dancing above the tray of oysters as he made a selection. Willow was gone, disappeared back into the shadows of the restaurant.

They were alone. Aziraphale had said nothing, and they were alone.

Crowley couldn’t do anything but stare. His jaw was hanging open and he knew it, but he found the connection between his brain and his motor function was quite definitely offline. His sunglasses slid down the bridge of his nose, exposing his serpentine eyes. 

Aziraphale delicately lifted a single oyster from its place on the tray. He lifted his gaze as he did so, and his eye’s met Crowley’s over the frame of his glasses.

“Crowley, is everything alright?”

 _Silence_.

“Crowley?” He asked again, concern starting to creep into his voice. “Crowley, dear, your—ahm,” he glanced away for a moment before meeting Crowley’s gaze again. “Your eyes are showing, dearest. Is everything alright?”

He didn’t know why Aziraphale had bothered to stop and ask him if he was alright before starting his verbal onslaught, but he knew it was coming. Even if Willow had managed to walk away before Aziraphale could correct her, he would undoubtedly at least be setting the record straight with Crowley. There was no way the angel would let an implication like that stand. It was a spot on his stainless record.

“I have to go.” The words tumbled out in a rush. 

He tried to stand but his lanky limbs were still shocked and uncoordinated. He managed to get one foot solidly on the floor of the aisle before banging his other knee on their table on his way up, throwing him horribly off balance. He wobbled on his feet, grabbed the edge of the table for balance before righting himself and turning away.

“What? Wait, where are you— Crowley!” Crowley could hear Aziraphale calling after him as he very nearly ran through the restaurant to the exit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for tuning back in! Chapter 3 is outlined, so be sure to hit subscribe if you'd like to read what happens next!


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